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Radio Listeners & Sales Up!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

I seem to be posting a lot of about radio on my return to this blog, however, lots of good information has come out.

Doing my daily briefing of country music news, I see the new radio survey has come out from Arbitron. Country radio is doing very well in radio. In fact, this survey shows its best ratings in 7 years. Wow.

Country radio is the 6th overall most listened to radio format in the country. A 9.5 share. News/Talk is the most listened to format, adult contemporary is #2. Contemporary hits, Spanish, and Urban are above country music. Rock stations fall just under country music.

Sales are good too. During the first six months of 2006, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Sure is shaping up to be a very good year for country music.

The Reason KZLA Up and Left for Another Fan - Los Angeles Times

Monday, August 21, 2006

The Reason KZLA Up and Left for Another Fan - Los Angeles Times

The L.A. Times yesterday published another article on the format change of KZLA. It discusses in detail the reasoning behind this change.

I highly recommend reading this article.

It comments on many different topics. Some of those include the impact of satellite Radio and a connection of the Hispanic population slower to move to new technology. The Caucasian population has been quicker to move the newer technologies such as IPods, MP3 players, and satellite radio.

The article also discusses the lack of other ethnic backgrounds in country music, which doesn't attract listeners from other backgrounds.

I still don't agree with the changes and the reasoning behind it. An area about 115 miles from Bakersfield should not be without a country station, that is for sure. The biggest problem in this world of business these days is displayed in this move. No respect for tradition, history, family values, rather a total bottom line thought process.

KZLA-FM Will Dump Country Music - Los Angeles Times

Saturday, August 19, 2006

KZLA-FM Will Dump Country Music - Los Angeles Times

It's already happened and lets add the #2 market in the U.S. to the list of no country music. New York is well known for not having a country station, and as of Thursday, L.A. doesn't either. How sad. The station, KZLA, that promotes themselves as "America's Most Listened To Country Station" is now heard by no one. They abruptly changed the format about 10:15am PST on Thursday. That's when the staff was notified of the change, the music changed and the DJ was told he was out of work. How sad.

Furthermore, the change of the station happened as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were probably preparing to head to L.A. to begin their 3 night stay for all sold out performances of their Soul 2 Soul II Tour.

If you check the website for the station, you will see a notice that looks new advising visitors that country music will be available on their HD radio station and streamed online. You'll see the banner at top as mentioned, and even a "Country Bash" in October featuring Gretchen Wilson, REO Speedwagon, Phil Vassar, SHeDAISY, and Jamie O'Neal. So, here is a station that appears to be behind the music and in the matter of hours, isn't.

What's going on here. It just doesn't make any sense at all to me. I don't understand the corporate radio world. They don't understand what they are doing. Being in the top 20 of the #2 market... even though reports say the station's ratings have slipped. Don't blame the format for that totally. There so many other reasons for ratings to drop other than the format. It could be more listeners, such as myself, going to XM or Sirius, or many other factors could be apart of the issue.

I wish I had an answer to this question... Why do they think the area needs another pop/r&b/dance music station? Why would they want to reformat into a style of music they are going to have to compete for listeners rather than have the entire market with no competition for listeners? Just doesn't make sense to me.

Country music fans everywhere need to be involved. Country music radio is slipping away from commercial radio stations. It may be slow, but it is important that the listeners in all areas of the U.S. know they are listened to and important. If they don't get the message, you are going to see even more of this trend. It is also important that listeners in the L.A. listening area make their opinions heard, and loud.

Welcome Me Back

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Hi there,

Long time no post I know. However, there has been so much going on that it did not make any sense to post.

The website is back up finally and running smoothly. Lot of work to do in the upcoming weeks, but its up, running, and updated. Little problems turn into big ones in web design and running a website. A small re-design that under perfect conditions taken about 1 week at most, turned into 16 days. This is especially true when your server gets accidently deleted.

Take a visit to the website, http://www.countrymusicalive.com and take a look around. I hope you will enjoy it.

Look for blog entries to be coming on a regular basis very soon and can't wait to get back into it.